His buttocks were numb from sitting all day and his jaw ached from clenching his teeth for nearly as long. It was after three; the working day was a couple of hours away from being over.

He was dressed smartly enough that he would not be noticed. His suit was freshly cleaned and the warmth of his body was releasing faint chemical odours from the weave. He was annoyed with himself for not remembering to hang it outside yesterday afternoon.

It was the sort of thing he was good at; at night, he would put balls of newspaper in his shoes to absorb moisture and odours, he rubbed lemon juice on the inside of his collars to make them white and when he drove he always hung his jacket from the coat hook in the back of his car so it wouldn't crease. This lapse in his usual meticulousness was frustrating and painful. He ground his teeth together.